Jesse French (23 July 1846 – 7 May 1927) was an American pianomanufacturer and philanthropist.
Life and career
editThe son of Jacob and Mary Ann French, Jesse French was born in Devonshire, England on 23 July 1846.[1] In 1848 he moved with his family to Nashville, Tennessee.[2] He was educated in Nashville Public Schools and at Brown's Business College in Peoria (now Midstate College).[3] He married Callie Lumsden on January 2, 1872.[1]
French began his career working for a printer. During the American Civil War he worked for the United States Postal Service at a branch in Nashville.[2] He then worked in the office of the Tennessee Secretary of State; ultimately rising to the role of Assistant Tennessee Secretary of State. He held that post for seven years.[3] He made an unsuccessful bid for the role of Tennessee Secretary of State in 1872; losing the election by a single vote.[2]
In 1872 he began a sheet music business in Nashville, and in 1875 he became a partner in the Nashville piano retail firm of Dorman, French & Smith.[1][4] In 1885 he founded the Jesse French Piano and Organ Company, a piano manufacturing company, in Nashville.[1] His sons Horace Edgar French and Jesse French Jr. joined the business. A building for its business was completed there about 1890. One of the largest music businesses in the South, it was influential in the development of ragtime. Its building in Nashville was listed as an endangered landmark in 2011.[5]
French established a second company, the Field-French Piano Company, in St. Louis, Missouri in 1887. It was ultimately absorbed into the Jesse French Piano and Organ Company (JFPOC). He remained the owner of the JFPOC until he sold the Nashville business in 1902.[3] In c. 1900 he became a partner in the Krell Piano Company (re-named at this time the French-Krell Piano Company) in Ohio. He later founded the Jesse French & Sons Piano Company in New Castle, Indiana[1] where the family operated a manufacturing plant.[6]
The firm's building in Nashville is at 240 5th Avenue North. The Library of Congress has two photos of it from the Historic American Buildings Survey.[7] The Camp Sewing Machine Company building is next to it in a circa 1900 Calvert Brothers photograph.[8]
The company's New Castle manufacturing plant is pictured on a bookmark and in a Krell-French Piano Company advertisment. A Music Trade Review insert from November 3, 1900 includes photographs of Albert Krell, Jesse French, Edwin B. Pfau, and H. Edgar French, the company's executives.[9]
The company's St. Louis location was at 1111 Olive Street. It had branches in various other cities.
Jesse French died on 7 May 1927 in New Castle, Indiana.[10][11]
See also
edit- List of piano manufacturers
- O. K. Houck, music store proprietor in Memphis
References
edit- ^ a b c d e Leonard, p. 204
- ^ a b c Dolge, p. 90
- ^ a b c Marquis, p. 209
- ^ Dolge, p. 91
- ^ Katie Smith (September 28, 2021). "The history of Nashville's French-Starr Piano Building". NASHtoday.
- ^ "The Presto Buyer's Guide to the American Pianos, Player-pianos and Organs". Presto Publishing Company. February 4, 1913 – via Google Books.
- ^ "Jesse French Piano and Organ Building, 240 5th Avenue North, Nashville, Davidson County, TN". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.
- ^ "Jesse French Piano Company".
- ^ "Jesse French Pianos". www.frenchfamilyassoc.com.
- ^ "Piano Man Dies". Indianapolis Times. May 9, 1927. p. 6.
- ^ Indiana, U.S., Death Certificates, 1899-2017 for Jesse French, Certificate 1926-1927, 06
Bibliography
edit- Conard, Howard Louis; Hyde, William, eds. (1899). Encyclopedia of the History of Saint Louis: A Compendium of History and Biography for Ready Reference,Volume 3. Southern History Company.
- Dahan, Charlie B.; Irmscher, Linda Gennett (2016). Gennett Records and Starr Piano. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9781439658413.
- Dolge, Alfred (1913). "Pianos and Their Makers: Development of the piano industry in America since the centennial exhibition at Philadelphia, 1876". Covina Publishing Company.
- Jasen, David A.; Tichenor, Trebor Jay (2013). Rags and Ragtime: A Musical History. Dover Publications. ISBN 9780486144573.
- Kennedy, Rick (2013). Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy: Gennett Records and the Rise of America's Musical Grassroots. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253007698.
- Leonard, John W., ed. (1906). "French, Jesse". The Book of St. Louisans: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Living Men of the City of St. Louis and Vicinity. The St. Louis Republic.
- Marquis, Albert Nelson, ed. (1912). "French, Jesse". The Book of St. Louisans: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Living Men of the City of St. Louis and Vicinity. Albert Nelson Marquis.
- Roell, Craig H. (2018). The Piano in America, 1890-1940. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9781469610610.
- Sharp, Tim (2007). Memphis Music: Before the Blues. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9780738544113.